A friend of mine did this activity with her two little girls months ago. I’d kept it in the back of my mind for months. Recently I had to pick up some note cards at the party store and while I was there I actually remembered to look for rave supplies glow in the dark sticks.

Nana and Pop are in town which means fun new surprises for the boy and craft time for Mama! One of Noah’s surprises was a small wooden helicopter and a big pack of new paints. While Nana was on paint duty I was preparing for the inevitable bath. On my last trip to the grocery Noah and I had found packs of small balloons on clearance. Just the right size for water balloons! I filled them with warm water and loaded the tub.

And ever since our Bubble Bubble Bath, no bath is complete without bubbles in the tub AND the air. We played toss with the balloons and surprisingly none bursts. The nice thing about this activity is the balloons will be there for the next bath. Until I show him how to throw them at the wall for a big, fun splash!

I combined a couple of ideas I collected recently on Pinterest for today’s activity. The first was adding colored ice cubes to the bath, which I found here at Mommysavers which is another WordPress blog full of frugal tips for living well on less. The other was to freeze little sea creatures and add those to the bath which was originally posted over at Make, Do & Friend. I still had lots of little buggers left over so I threw those in an ice-cube tray, added some colored water and they’re hibernating in the freezer now, getting ready for Noah’s bath tonight. I can just imagine how that feels to be submerged in nice warm water and have these frozen little creatures sliding up against you. It doesn’t really sound appealing when I say that out loud but I’m actually a little envious of having that sensation. I think it’s going to feel strange and fantastic!

Ice Cube Tray

Water

Coloring

Buggers or other tiny treasures

This activity takes a tiny bit of forethought. I used blue and yellow food coloring so his bath water would end up being a bit greenish. I thought that was a good buggy color.

You could vaguely see the trail of color as they melted.

He was most interested in sucking on the ice. Blame the 2-year molars.

Until he realized he could make Mama squeal by “chasing” her with the bugs. Now that was fun!

Honestly, I’m feeling pretty uninspired today. My husband worked all morning as I tried to carve out tiny spaces of time to get work done on some custom orders. It might as well have been a weekday, not the lazy Sunday I keep pining for that just never happens. The afternoon was spent barn shopping as I’m just too dissatisfied and stressed out about the pony’s current placement. That experience left me feeling even more stressed out and backed into a corner. We finished up with that much later than i had anticipated though so I just had to let it all sit in my belly while I rushed to the grocery store to get food for a dinner I had no desire to eat. It was the kind of day that should have ended with me relaxing in a bubble bath sipping a glass of my favorite Pinot. But since I’m stuck here in reality as opposed to some to romantic fantasy, this was as close as I could get.
It was no glass of wine, but it totally made my day 🙂

Bubbles of all kinds!

While Noah finished dinner I started the tub with water and lots and lots of bubble bath. I set up his bubble machine and filled it with regular bubble solution and dish soap. Before Noah came into the bathroom I wanted to fill it with bubbles bubbles everywhere! I did however skip the manual bubble wands. I knew I would be stuck blowing bubbles over and over for the next 30 minutes and after today, I just wasn’t up for it. Turns out, we didn’t really need them. I also let the tub fill way more than I usually do.

When Noah came running into the bathroom the air was already filled with bubbles as even more bubbles foamed near the top of the tub. He was so excited! No better night to do this with that dirty face too!

He working against the wind trying to blow the bubbles himself! Our cat has grown up with 3 dogs since he was weeks old. It’s given him the best catdog personality and no fear of water. He likes to come in and check on us during bathtime.

I think the extra dish soap helped make the bubbles extra awesome tonight. And of course, the obligatory soap mohawk shot! Or “So-Hawk” as my husband calls it.

My kid is a fish! He loves anything that involves water and when he can submerge his entire body in it, all the better. We started taking him swimming at 3 months and he’s never once balked. Except for those 4 or 5 months when he did. In a big way. Water itself was never the issue and swimming has remainder an all time favorite outing. It was the dreaded hair washing that sucked all the joy out of baths. As I’ve learned, most kids go through this and get over it. Here’s one of the activities that helped bring the joy back to bath time, at least until it’s time to wash those golden locks.

I found this idea at Having Fun At Home. I loved how they seperated each color by using a muffin tin, almost like an artist’s pallate! I put mine in the blue foam contianers mushrooms come in because I hate to throw something like that out, especially something made of styrofoam, before getting at least one more use out of them. Also, I didn’t want to wash my muffin tin. But I will say, what a great idea!